Tuesday, April 24, 2007

2007 French Presidential Race (round 2)

The fisrt round of the french presidential election is over and in two weeks the second round will occur. While everyone is playing nice and entertaining the hope that France will have its first female president, this is unfortunaly not going to happen. It is not because she is a woman, it is a simple fact of numbers. She doesn't have enough. She cannot win enough of Bayrous supporters. In Addition to this, history is not on her side. François Mitterrand was the only french president of the fifth republic of France to lose the first round and win the second.

On a side note I would love the introduction of Frances two round voting system for president to be intruduced in the United States. That and a direct election. I think it will never happen though. The effect would be the tearing apart of the two party system that currently controls the goverment. The right and the left may not agree all the time but they are not stupid enough to give up what they have.

With Frances two round system you wouldn't have to worry about throwing your vote away on a third party candidate. You could vote for the person that best represents you in the first round and then in the second round you would still have a chance to vote against a candidate that you think would be horrible for the country.

As an example; this would eliminate my need to vote democratic just because they are lesser of two evils. If america had Frances system, I could vote for an indepedant candidate in the first round and then in the second round I would still have a chance to vote against the Grand OLD Party if it came down to that. This way third party candidates would recieve enough votes to obtain federal funding for elections in the future and the presidency would become less likely to be only for the mega rich.